thoughts on a very good run
I needed my headlamp for running this morning. Still hot here, too hot for midday runs,
but darker every day in the early morning hours. There was enough light for me to see by, mostly, but I was running on roads, and so it was as important to be seen as to see. Still, the stars were brilliant and sharply distinct while dark shapes and indistinct shadows clung to the corners.
This morning was one of those runs on which everything just felt right. Everything felt good. All body parts were cooperating to progress smoothly forward without aching or stiffness or mild regret that I wasn't still in bed. It doesn't happen every time, but when it does, it gives me more free mind space to think my thoughts. I don't have to think about my foot problem or my ragged breathing or that small pain in my lower lumbar. I'm running like floating. The usual aches and pains have given me some leash.
While moving through the sleeping streets, I was thinking of an article I read about Kenyan runners on NPR.org just yesterday. Why one small area in Kenya, Iten, consistently produces the world's best distance runners. One reason is that they train at eight thousand feet. For another, they run a lot of hills, up from the Great Rift Valley that is six miles down. They run and they run and they run, first because they have to run--often to school and back--then because they love to run, and then often
continue for the practical reason that it is one of the few ways to escape extreme poverty.
I think about what motivates me. I am not dirt-poor, as the article describes the people of Iten. I don't ever hope to earn a buck from running (although I did earn ten once) or anything more than a shirt and a free beer. But I am sometimes lacking in other lucre that running pays out--confidence, calm, strength to face the demands of my life. Some days it's simply that my mind, my "teetering bulb of dread and dream", is not sitting easy in my thick skull on my scrawny neck. It is weighted down with first world problems, re-living messed up past scenes or tripping into some feared version of the
future. It is busy writing some story, some version of not being happy where I am. I run to escape my poverty of optimism, or of fearlessness or joy.
Running is so present-moment for me. Once I hit my stride, I don't consider where else I might be, need to be, should be. I don't wear a watch. I don't care what time it is beyond the general idea of keeping my job. I roughly estimate my distance and then mess it all up by adding a loop here or an extra bit there. I'm all there when I run, every part of me, from the roots of my sweaty hair to the tips of my painful right toes and my good left toes. Inside my head, inside my muscles, inside the sound of my breathing, I am synchronized. We are all doing the same thing in this "bag of water and chalk and slime". We are running. I am running. All of us together, knees and fingers, ribs and blood cells, heart and head, are all running.
This morning was one of those runs on which everything just felt right. Everything felt good. All body parts were cooperating to progress smoothly forward without aching or stiffness or mild regret that I wasn't still in bed. It doesn't happen every time, but when it does, it gives me more free mind space to think my thoughts. I don't have to think about my foot problem or my ragged breathing or that small pain in my lower lumbar. I'm running like floating. The usual aches and pains have given me some leash.
While moving through the sleeping streets, I was thinking of an article I read about Kenyan runners on NPR.org just yesterday. Why one small area in Kenya, Iten, consistently produces the world's best distance runners. One reason is that they train at eight thousand feet. For another, they run a lot of hills, up from the Great Rift Valley that is six miles down. They run and they run and they run, first because they have to run--often to school and back--then because they love to run, and then often
continue for the practical reason that it is one of the few ways to escape extreme poverty.
I think about what motivates me. I am not dirt-poor, as the article describes the people of Iten. I don't ever hope to earn a buck from running (although I did earn ten once) or anything more than a shirt and a free beer. But I am sometimes lacking in other lucre that running pays out--confidence, calm, strength to face the demands of my life. Some days it's simply that my mind, my "teetering bulb of dread and dream", is not sitting easy in my thick skull on my scrawny neck. It is weighted down with first world problems, re-living messed up past scenes or tripping into some feared version of the
future. It is busy writing some story, some version of not being happy where I am. I run to escape my poverty of optimism, or of fearlessness or joy.
Running is so present-moment for me. Once I hit my stride, I don't consider where else I might be, need to be, should be. I don't wear a watch. I don't care what time it is beyond the general idea of keeping my job. I roughly estimate my distance and then mess it all up by adding a loop here or an extra bit there. I'm all there when I run, every part of me, from the roots of my sweaty hair to the tips of my painful right toes and my good left toes. Inside my head, inside my muscles, inside the sound of my breathing, I am synchronized. We are all doing the same thing in this "bag of water and chalk and slime". We are running. I am running. All of us together, knees and fingers, ribs and blood cells, heart and head, are all running.
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